A Handful of Bullet Shells
by ChimericKat
Summary: All of Kaiba Corporation's virtual reality games come with the same warning printed on them. "-WARNING- Playing a virtual reality game can distort your perception of reality." It isn't a warning that should be ignored. Not even by the lead programmer for the newest game.


Author's Notes:

This story is mostly science fiction with subplot that has a lot of fantasy elements. There will eventually be a romance, but the romance won't come into play for quite some time. The relationship, however, begins to build within the first few chapters. It just doesn't turn romantic right away (because Kaiba).

This story is posted up to chapter 11 on Archive of Our Own. Please feel free to check it out over there. (My pen name is dragonsilk.) It's second person so I did have to edit it for . I'm not really a fan of posting over here due to their restrictions, but I figured I might put this up just to see if it gathers any interest. If you've read the original, I'd recommend sticking with it. :)

* * *

From my angle, the Chaos Sorcerer was an easy target. It was facing away from me, completely focused on sending spells at Kaiba, so I had plenty of time to switch from the machine gun to a shotgun. I checked to make sure the gun was loaded and then took an extra moment to aim for the Sorcerer's head. Chaos Sorcerers were strong, and I could not afford to miss.

BAM! I pulled the trigger, and it staggered back. In a moment, it would probably turn its attention to me, so I quickly readjusted your aim. BAM! Another shot. This time through the chest, and hopefully, the heart. I waited a moment, ready to shoot it again if need be, but it disappeared, leaving behind a small bag.

A quick scan of the area revealed that nothing else was nearby. I switched back to the machine gun, just in case something decided to jump out at me from the murky fog of this level. Perhaps we should rethink having this stage as the first level. Being in this fog was much creepier than I thought it would be, and it may not be a good idea to scare people right away. The game was a fantasy game and not a horror.

"I didn't need your help." Kaiba glared at me.

"It wasn't help. The sorcerer was completely focused on you, making it a much easier kill than it would have been otherwise. This way I get the experience and the loot. They drop some pretty good loot too." Before Kaiba could think about stealing the loot, he didn't strike me as the sort of man who actually cared about gaming courtesies, I strode over to the small bag and picked it up. I held it out for him to see before commenting, "We were thinking about having people actually search the dead bodies, but that idea got voted out. Some people were concerned it would be too morbid and creepy." I opened the bag and instantly words floated above the items inside.

I pulled out the bright orange sphere. "Bombs can be very useful." I tossed it high in the air in Kaiba's direction and snapped my fingers so that it triggered right above his head. It didn't do any damage, I threw it too high for that, but I did feel a small sense of satisfaction as he lurched back in surprise.

It was official. I loved my job.

 **A month earlier.**

I hated my boss, and surprisingly I didn't mean Seto Kaiba. No, I might work at Kaiba Corp, but Seto Kaiba was my boss' boss and not someone I saw very often. I had no reason to feel any dislike for Mr. Kaiba. Sure he came into my department from time to time and acted like a raging jackass to everyone, but at least he never took credit for my work.

Not like my boss, who was off fucking a secretary or something while I worked out the bugs in Kaiba Corp's newest virtual reality game. Technically, as the lead programmer, it was his job to oversee everything that was going on and work out the problems in the final stages of all the codes. He should be the one who had the final say in the game's design, but in reality, he did almost nothing except for take credit for all the work that I did.

So when Seto Kaiba stormed in I was nearly giddy with glee. I was resolving an issue with the first level's boss battle while my boss was off doing god-knows-who. A visit from Kaiba was never a good thing, but today, I was too pleased that he would finally catch my good-for-nothing-asshole-of-a-boss slacking off to care.

"Where's the lead?" Kaiba demanded when nobody immediately jumped up to greet him.

While I couldn't throw my boss under the bus, no matter how delicious the thought was, I could still make myself look good. I stepped forward and braced myself for the attention that would be directed my way. "He's off fu—taking a break."

Even though I'd braced myself, Kaiba's glare was still disconcerting. The force of that stare wasn't something that anyone could simply brace against. He seemed to study every single detail as he looked down his nose at me. "Who are you?" he snapped.

"The scapegoat." Maybe joking wasn't the way to go with Kaiba, but the words slipped out before I could think about them, and it was too late now. "When everything goes well, the lead takes credit, but the moment it crashes and burns, it's all my fault. I can answer any questions you might have about our current progress."

He studied me and raised his eyebrow. "What's the current status on the project?"

It was a question that only the lead should be able to answer easily because it involved knowing what everyone was working on and where they were. "The first two levels are completely written. We're debugging them now so that we can use them as a test harness for the battle system, which has also been coded. Part of the team is working on the third level, but the focus right now is getting the battle system completely operational."

If he was surprised by the answer, he didn't show it. "Does the game actually run on the system?"

"Yes. The levels themselves are easy to test on simulators, and most of the time that's faster, but we do all of our testing for the battle system by using the pods. Since it's designed for virtual reality, it's nearly impossible to test it without actually going in there."

Kaiba cast his glare around the room at everyone before his gaze focused on my computer. "What were you working on before I came in?"

"The AI for the first boss isn't behaving like it should so I'm debugging it."

"Is that the only bug in the first level?"

I considered his question for a moment before nodding. "The only major bug left to fix."

"Save your work and run the level on a simulator," he demanded.

"Right away!" I quickly copied the code that I was working on over to a new file and saved it. I wasn't done working with it, and I didn't want to risk one of my untested changes crashing the level while I gave a demonstration for Kaiba.

I offered my chair to Kaiba, and as he sat down, I booted up the simulator.

"Our current simulator allows you to walk through the level like a ghost. Battles aren't triggered but all completed cut scenes are, and you still have to obey the world's boundaries. It's simply to observe the world and ensure that everything is properly placed."

"Completed cutscenes?"

I cringed at his tone. I should have expected him to pick up on that. Hopefully he wasn't about to snap and fire anyone. "They aren't all completed for the first level yet. The animation team isn't working on the cutscenes in order, and I believe most of their focus right now is on the backgrounds and characters for the later levels. Cutscenes are their last priority." At least, that was what you were last told by the animation department. They sometimes blew you off since they technically didn't have to answer to you. Even your lead didn't really have much power over them, but at least they had to keep him updated on their progress.

Kaiba simply grunted, and I had a feeling that the animation department would be getting a visit after this. Those poor, pathetic sods.

"Does this actually do anything or is this your pathetic excuse for a level?"

I nearly jumped out of my skin at Kaiba's sharp comment. I hit the button to compile the first level before pushing the keyboard toward Kaiba. "Would you like to navigate the level yourself or should I show you the details?"

"Despite what you might think, not everyone shares your low intelligence. I am perfectly capable of navigating a game without your commentary." He took over the keyboard and mouse and began working his way through the level.

As he navigated the level, I bit my lip and tried not to supply him with any knowledge that he might find useless or annoying. It wasn't too hard. After a while, I became distracted by the complex things that he attempted as he searched for bugs in the program. He found a few small errors that I never would have thought the code could produce.

He occasionally pointed out things that he didn't like and that he wanted changed. Some of those things didn't have anything to do with the gameplay and were details that the animation team would have to work out. For example, he claimed that there was a problem with the design of one of the monsters. I simply wrote down his comments in silence. It wouldn't help if I tried to tell him that the programming team wasn't responsible for the animation.

It might seem weird, but despite all of his negative comments, I was pleased that he was still playing the game. When he was really displeased with someone's work, he often verbally tore their head off before storming out of the room. His comments might not be nice, but they were necessary, and Kaiba didn't praise anyone. Ever.

Then my boss hurried into the room. His shirt was sloppily buttoned and his hair was a mess, suggesting that he must have heard from someone that Kaiba was in his department.

"Mr. Kaiba! What a pleasure!" He shoved me out of the way as he began to kiss Kaiba's ass. "I see you're looking at an... example of the work we have completed! We're making very good time on the game. Don't you agree?"

"This game is a complete mess! Where the hell were you?!" Kaiba thundered.

Well, maybe Kaiba was just saving his hatred of the game for the person in charge. Not that that actually seemed like something Kaiba would do. Either way, I wouldn't get involved if I could avoid it. I tried to fade into the background and slip away.

Then my boss grabbed my wrist and yanked me forward so that I stood between him and Kaiba. I would have rolled my eyes if I weren't so nervous. He was predictably going to use me as a shield. "There was an emergency, but everything was working perfectly when I left!" Dramatically he turned to face me. "That's the last time I leave you in charge!" He shook his head as he addressed Kaiba. "She's useless really. I ask her to fix something and she screws up the entire code!"

Kaiba stood and looked down at your boss. My body was still being used as a human shield, but Kaiba was tall enough that he could easily look right over my head. Even though, I wasn't the focus of that glare I still felt it. I wanted to melt straight into the floor and disappear.

"You're fired."

I had to double check that Kaiba wasn't looking at me before slipping out of my boss' now shaking hands. Rather than watch the show, I slid into the seat that Kaiba had just vacated and began fixing some of the bugs that Kaiba had pointed out earlier. The team was on a strict schedule, and the lead getting fired was only going to delay that schedule. Time would be wasted searching for a new lead programmer as the department slowly devolved into anarchy with nobody in charge. I might as well try to work done now while I could.

My now-ex-boss was protesting and trying to claim that he was elsewhere doing important work for the game. He even told Kaiba to check with some girl from accounting. As if there were any reason for him to be dealing with the accounting department.

I tuned his protests out. At this point, it was obvious that he wouldn't be able to save his job. Kaiba was nearly impossible to persuade, and my former boss was too rattled to even speak without stuttering.

Eventually I was pulled out of my debugging by a hand waving in front of my face. I turned to see who was trying to get my attention and found Kaiba angrily staring me down. "Give me your Kaiba Corp. ID," he demanded before I could say anything.

"Yes! Okay!" I pulled my desk open and rifled through my purse for my ID. In my hurry, some of my things spilled out. I wanted to ask Kaiba why he wanted my ID because I was paranoid that he was about to fire me, too, but I knew that questioning him was like sticking a blow-drier in a filled bathtub.

He took my ID from me, I was pleased to note that my hands were not shaking, and looked down at the picture. "Get this back from my assistant at the end of the day." That simple remark was the last thing he said before leaving the department.

I sat in place and stared after him with my mouth hanging open. Well, I probably wouldn't be fired, but I still had no idea why he wanted my ID. The most logical explanation was that he was considering me for the recently vacated Lead Programmer position, but that would be unbelievably amazing, and I didn't want to get my hopes up. My gaze floated around the room at all of my equally shocked coworkers, and I suddenly thought of the animation department.

My hand dove back into my purse to quickly pull out my phone. I opened up a group text and sent the words "KAIBA ALERT!" to the entire animation department. Hopefully someone would see it before Kaiba was able to reach their floor.

That quick moment of panic for the animation department helped me process everything that had just occurred. I was ready to get back to work, but a glance at my whispering coworkers told me that I was the only one.

"Just because Kaiba walked away doesn't mean we can relax. He's visited a department twice in the same day before, and the animation team might send him back."

Most of the people in the programming department had worked at Kaiba Corp. long enough to remember the incident that I was referencing. Half the payroll team lost their jobs that day, and the other half were forced to put in days of overtime after that to make sure that payday was on time. Kaiba might have been responsible for their decimated numbers, but he still expected them to keep their deadlines.

A few of my coworkers were starting to look worried, which was not what I intended. "We've lost our lead, but so what? He was a useless waste of space." There were several nods of agreement. "We still have our deadlines, so let's get back to work."

The entire programming team went back to their assigned tasks. The incident with payroll was every single Kaiba Corp. employee's nightmare. Nobody could honestly say if they'd rather be fired or part of the team working double time for months.

I continued making all the adjustments to the first level that Kaiba had pointed out. It was best to do the small things while I still remembered them. After I finished the little changes he had suggested, I would get back to working on the boss battle.

I had also made notes on all the animation changes that Kaiba wanted and decided to bring it down to the animation team after Kaiba had enough time to terrorize their department. I didn't want to run into him again if I could help it.

Once I was done with the small changes, I decided to take a break before switching back to the boss battle and tried to drop off the notes with the animation department. I made it down to their floor and immediately realized that the programming team was actually quite lucky.

Upon arrival, I found the head of their department curled up under a table with his thumb in his mouth. I stopped to talk to the first person I could find who wasn't hysterical and discovered that Kaiba hadn't held any punches in their department. Nobody was fired, but Kaiba had verbally abused nearly everyone.

I left the notes in the head animator's box and made a mental note to send him an email to ensure that he knew they were notes directly from Kaiba.

The day ended at five exactly, much like any other day, but the boss fight was so teasingly close to completion that I ended up working past five to finish the final function. This wasn't out of the ordinary. I often ended up staying late in order to finish whatever I happened to be working on. I didn't like to interrupt my thought processes in the middle of anything, and I usually didn't have anywhere to go after work.

Except today I had to pick up my ID from Kaiba's assistant, and I didn't know when she left the office. So I pulled myself away from my work after I was done with the final function for it. It was nearly five-thirty, much earlier than normal, but I told myself that I could come back down to my desk to do some testing after I got my ID back.

Assuming I wasn't fired.

In the elevator, I found myself faced with a Catch-22. In order to get my ID card from Kaiba's office, I needed to swipe my ID in the elevator so that it would allow me access to Kaiba's office. Of course, even if I had my ID, I still might not be able to access Kaiba's office. After hours, only important employees were able to access Kaiba's office and only while he was actually in his office. My ex-boss could probably reach Kaiba, but my ID didn't have that much power.

So I was caught. Reluctantly I pressed the button for the lobby and hoped that someone would still be at the front desk. They had visitor IDs, and I could probably use one to get up to Kaiba's floor.

Thankfully some of the secretaries in the lobby worked until six. I managed to get the attention of one of the women and explained the situation to her. She called up Kaiba's assistant to confirm the story before giving me a visitor's pass to Kaiba's office.

"Don't forget to return that before you leave!" she called out as I walked away from her desk. "Otherwise the replacements are docked from your pay!"

After that I was forced to trek all the way back to the elevators so I could begin the long ride up to the top floor. Very few people were actually using the elevator to go up this time of night, but that didn't stop it from being a long ride.

Despite my good intentions, it was past six by the time I finally reached Kaiba's office. After all that wasted time, I really hoped that I wasn't about to find out that I was getting fired.

My day was still full of surprises. When I opened the door to the top floor, I expected to find Kaiba's assistant, Setsu, sitting at her desk.

The woman sitting at the desk was not Setsu.

"Setsu wasn't fired was she?" the words spilled out the moment I saw the new woman. If Setsu was already gone, then I had just lost a lot of money in the betting pool. I'd expected her to stick around for a few more months and had put money on it.

"Oh no!" The woman smiled. "I'm Mr. Kaiba's evening assistant, and you are?"

I didn't even know that Kaiba had more than one assistant and said as much after giving her my name.

"Mr. Kaiba can't have an assistant work for more than twelve hours. Well, he could, I'm sure he wouldn't bat an eye at all that overtime, but they all burn out quickly. Setsu and I work as a team. I work part time and take all the odd hours. Now what can I help you with?"

"I'm here to pick up my ID."

"Oh! Congratulations!" She looked down and picked up a stapled packet of papers before handing them out to me.

"For what?" I stepped closer to the desk, trying to get a look at the papers in her hand before accepting them.

"Your promotion of course!"

I froze. "Is this a joke?" There was no way. People didn't get promoted just like that.

"Mr. Kaiba never jokes." She pointed to a section of the document. "But I do have to point out that the position is only temporary for the moment. Mr. Kaiba can demote you back to a regular programmer anytime he likes." She turned a page and pointed to another section. "If he does, you'll still receive your increased pay for all the time you spent as a Lead Programmer, but I wouldn't worry about a demotion too much. Temporary fills are usually just a fast way to place you in the new role as all the official paperwork is processed. If you do well, Mr. Kaiba will probably just give you the job permanently."

By the end of her detailed explanation of the contract that she expected me to sign, only one fact had actually registered in my mind. "I'm the new lead?"

"Mr. Kaiba didn't mention-actually I'm not surprised, but yes, in a nutshell. Here's where you need to sign."

I looked over the contract, and the moment my eyes landed on the pay increase, I did a mental happy dance. "This is amazing!" I took another moment to look at the rest of the details. Nothing raised a red flag so I signed the contract.

I gave the signed contract back to the assistant, and she handed back my Kaiba Corp. ID. Then I looked down at the ID and corrected myself. It was a new ID, with my new title on it: Lead Programmer. Just thinking the new title felt amazing even though the new ID had the same horrible photo that the old ID had. It would have been nice to get a new photo to go with the new position, but I wasn't going to complain.

"Is there anything else I need to do?" I questioned after admiring the new ID.

"Not today." She was typing something into her computer. "We'll let you know when more official paperwork is drawn up. By tomorrow you should have an email with all the details of your new post." She frowned and lowered her voice. "I'd be careful for the next week. Mr. Kaiba will probably be visiting your department sometime in the next few days to make sure that you're doing the job properly."

"Thanks." I gave her a genuine smile. That was one of the nice things about working at Kaiba Corp. The boss might be a raging asshole, but everyone tried to help each other avoid his wrath. Word traveled fast every time that Kaiba decided to prowl the company in a bad mood so he could find people to fire. There were a variety of 'Kaiba Alarms' hidden throughout the company. People had numbers for members of other departments so that they could text them warnings much like you had earlier in the day. There was even a closed Facebook group that posted warnings and notifications on Kaiba's whereabouts as well as his mood.

The warning system was how the old Lead Programmer had been able to keep his job for so long. He made full use of the system, and today, he saw that while it was useful, it wasn't flawless.

As I left the office, I swore that I wouldn't depend on the system. I would keep working as hard as I could, and I would create Kaiba Corp's best virtual reality game. I would show Kaiba that I deserved to keep this promotion.


End file.
